Sisters in Sports: The Female Dominated Legacy of Langston Sports Media

College sports in the U.S. are among the most popular bonding experiences across campuses. From the inner relationships between teammates and coaches to the unspoken tie fans share, this aspect of collegiate life is a noteworthy part of many people’s journey.

To ensure this connection is maintained, sports media teams work to bring coverage to the respective universities’ athletic programs. Langston University is no different; however, as with many things at LU, the journey to this point has been unique and historical.

In 2022, Langston University transfer student and now alumna Nadia Mooreland saw her peers creating, at the time, unofficial social media content for Langston sports teams that was garnering significant attention.

“I came across a TikTok, and they had like, a 100,000 something likes, and I think it was the ‘who’s your celebrity crush’ one. I was like, what? Like this is Langston University, like…this is real?”

This observation sparked inspiration in Mooreland, and “on a fried chicken Wednesday,” she would learn she was not the only one with this passion. That day, she would meet fellow student and current alumna Quinzaria Tatum, with whom she would exchange information about possibly getting together to plan a sports media project.

“It was a while until we finally met it up,” Tatum said, “and I remember I was on the phone … and I was like, I do not want to stand that girl up again. 
He [the person she was on the phone with] was like, ‘well, don’t’ and I was like ‘okay, cool.’”

Soon after Tatum made that decision, Mooreland was in her dorm room, ready to discuss the ideas that were carefully laid out in a notebook of hers. Just like Mooreland, Tatum had her notebook of ideas ready and in hand as well.

Mooreland said, “I knew from that moment there … this is someone that I want to do this with. The fact that she came with the same energy, had her notebook. She had already had ideas down herself. 
I was like, oh, yeah, this is the way that I want to do this. This… is somebody that I know that is gonna like come with the same energy with me as far as like really … jumping this off, and so … we have like a whole … brainstorming clinic right then and there.”

After this session and some further discussion, Mooreland and Tatum realized that they couldn’t do this on their own, and that is when Langston alumna Aniyah Robinson and current SGA Vice President and graduating senior broadcast journalism major Jasilyn Spivey got brought into the mix. The four women came together and got to work.

Mooreland said, “We probably had planning meetings for like two weeks, almost every single day, like Monday through Friday … yeah, it was a lot. It was crazy. And so I remember, I emailed AD Rogers, and I was like…me and a couple girls, … we want to meet with you … we want to do something to help, like, y’all social media presence, for athletics, like, we think that, you know, we can help you guys out. And she said, ‘okay, cool … , we’ll set up the meeting.’”

The quartet would perform a full business presentation to athletic director Donnita Drain-Rogers and former assistant director of athletics and compliance Fachaitte Kinslow. This presentation included a detailed outline of why a social media presence was needed, along with market research and a SWOT analysis.

This thoughtfulness gained the approval of Drain-Rogers and Kinslow; however, that was not the end of the road for these four ladies.

Mooreland said, “We had to present it for the whole coaching staff. We had to present in front of the PR team… we had to present it in front of Kyle [Taylor, current assistant director of athletics and athletic communications].”

After some convincing, the four’s idea would gain approval, and they would start growing their team, adding peers who also had an interest in sports media.

As the team’s work began to blossom, so did their responsibilities. Mooreland said, “We weren’t just doing social media, because … we saw this bigger than just, …, social media. We knew social media was … the tool, but, like, me and her were doing more than that. … We were doing fan engagement … We were doing, you know, operations for both, like, game operations and business operations. …We were doing a little bit of the finance. 
Like, we were helping out with all that, advertising … corporate sponsorships. We did it all because like I said, we saw the bigger picture.”

This bigger picture, as they described, was promoting Dear Langston in a positive, fun light to attract recruits and future lions.

Tatum said, “That was literally the whole point, and we can look on our 1st presentation and show that that was up there. That was one of the reasons why we wanted to do this. 
Increasing students, you know, the student body, um, the enrollment and recruits. …it’s not just helping athletics. 
It’s helping the entire school, like, kids see those videos and then, like, they want to come to Langston. Even if they’re not an athlete, like, you know, that makes them like, okay, this school is fun, this school is a hype school.”

In regard to this impact, Mooreland said, “CV [women’s basketball head coach Chris Vincent] … told me, … he shows off the press conferences that we do and the media days and stuff. That’s their selling point.” She added that, “we definitely, I would say … planted the seed, when it came to that [growth]. That year after we started the team, Coach Wright [mens basketball head coach] had six D1 transfers.”

That was the 2024-2025 school year, and almost half of the media team would graduate in the spring, including Mooreland and Tatum. With that in mind, in collaboration with Kyle Taylor, the two worked to scout students to join the team and carry on this legacy.

By the time of their graduation, they would have found three women who were ready to step up into leadership roles: current sophomore broadcast journalism major Bea Amukaya, junior broadcast journalism major Christavia Soloman, and sophomore broadcast journalism major Layla Nickerson (oh…hey y’all…little fourth wall break for ya’…anyways back to the story).

Now that Mooreland and Tatum have graduated, they agree that there is a commonality between Langston sports media and professional sports media: women are dominating the field. However, in the corporate world, they are rarely recognized for it.

Tatum said, “I would say it is extremely female dominant, but the recognition is still not there. Every time I’m applying to stuff, all of my references are pretty much women that I have met in the industry. When I see projects, because I’m always on LinkedIn, 24/7, people that I see posting like, last week I did this or, you know, it was great to spearhead this project, it’s always a woman. It’s always a woman doing it. It’s always a woman creating the project. It’s always just a woman being a creative director behind the scenes. 
Like, it’s always a woman, and people like to put everybody else on the front.”

Mooreland explained that before joining NBC Sports, they had just worked to increase the number of women in the department, which had been predominantly male.

In regard to her experience, Mooreland said, “We’re overpowering … the males right now. Even our vice president to this day he was like, yeah, I just love how we have more women here.”

Mooreland and Tatum exemplify the hard work, dedication and passion it takes to be pioneers as women in sports, and though they have since graduated from Langston, the legacy of sisterhood they have left behind for sports media is one that is still fundamental to that team and how it operates to this day (trust, I may know a thing or two about it).